Kheal Leang

Leang’s educational background includes a Bachelor's degree in general management and a Master's degree in Social Work from the Royal University of Phnom Penh. He has extensive program and technical experience through his work with child-focused organizations including World Vision, Save the Children, and World Hope International. He brings with him more than 14 years of expertise in managing and directing projects at an international organization.

He is excited to lead OIC’s work to grow and mainstream speech therapy within Cambodia through advocacy, training, research, and collaborative projects. Key players for this outcome include government ministries and universities, NGO’s and private providers, and the international speech therapy community. Specific goals include working with Ministry of Health and University of Health Science to integrate speech therapy in to UHS’s program, supporting them to build this new profession through bachelor and master degrees, integrating into policy and supporting job creation for the ST workforce.

“For speech therapy, I see there is high demand and a lower supply side. This has a heavy impact on the quality of life of those who have difficulties with communication and/or swallowing.”

In the future, He hopes to see the number of speech therapy professions increase from day to day and that Cambodian people have a better understanding of what speech therapy is and can have access to quality services for people with communication and swallowing difficulties.